


Somewhere to Begin

by gsparkle



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Thai Food, Tony Is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 17:45:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2741426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gsparkle/pseuds/gsparkle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint and Natasha have a shorthand in the field that's leaked into their regular methods of communication. On a weekly dinner, Clint does something Natasha is completely unprepared for, and they discover that they define some of their code words in very different ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere to Begin

One of Natasha’s favorite things to do on a lazy summer afternoon was to stretch out on the balcony and read. The sounds of the city below would just barely make it up to Tony’s 70th floor, creating a kind of white noise that allowed her to get lost in whatever it was she was reading. This time she was struggling through one of those Dan Brown thrillers that everyone seemed to love so much, likely because the general public, unlike Natasha, was not trained to look at every person with suspicion. She’d figured out the culprit as soon as he’d been introduced, and there were still about 200 pages to go. _Boring_. Maybe now that she wasn't writing SHIELD reports or training recruits, she could write some real mysteries, with heists and assassinations and several differently-motivated hostile parties--

A gentle chime from her phone interrupted the plot of her forthcoming best seller. “Dinner with Clint” was in fifteen minutes, and even though she forcefully reminded herself that she had dinner with Clint all the time, and that they had eaten together while bruised, bloody, and covered in who knew what, she still felt that she should take a shower. And put on make up.

And wear a dress?

 _Too much,_ she decided as she considered herself in the mirror ten minutes later. She wiped off the makeup, hung the dress back up, and tugged on jeans and a casual pair of sneakers. Casual dinner with a casual friend in a casual shirt that just happened to make her arms look fantastic. In all likelihood, Clint had forgotten, anyway, so she didn't want to be waiting in the lounge while Tony interrogated her about why she was dressed up.

Clint hadn't forgotten, though, and was already sprawled on the couch in jeans and a t-shirt that looked like he might have actually washed it recently. “Spy stuff,” he said dismissively when nosy Tony turned from his desk and opened his mouth. “Recon on a sleeper HYDRA base,” he added when Tony tried again. Tony looked suspicious, but stopped asking questions when whatever he was tinkering with released a shrill wailing noise.

Outside, away from JARVIS’ ever-listening programming, Natasha turned to Clint with a small smile. “Thai?” The sun was tracking west and she could just see the shadows starting to gather around the corners of Stark Tower. Clint ran a hand through his hair which, Natasha suddenly noticed, appeared to actually have been combed. _Clint owns a comb?_ She slapped down the instinct to tell him that his hair looked nice.

“Brooklyn,” he said in agreement. They set off for Grand Central to catch the subway, elbows brushing as they compared the events of their respective afternoons in the shorthand they had somehow started using outside of missions. After they’d sparred in the gym all morning, Clint had taken a nap, made a giant sandwich and wiped the floor with Steve at Mario Kart. Idly, Natasha wondered if Clint, like she, made offhand comments to Steve before realizing that he wasn’t actually the other half of Team Delta. She still remembered the time she’d hissed, “gnome!” at Steve in the field and he’d looked back at her in confusion as he tripped the ankle height motion sensor, because “gnome” didn’t mean “ankle height motion sensor” to anyone other than Clint. When Clint had read the debrief later he’d laughed hysterically and held it over her head for two weeks, as for once it was Natasha who’d said something idiotic on a mission.

In the same way, when they were in New York and someone wanted Thai food, it could only come from the Dragon’s Beard, a hole in the wall in Brooklyn that Clint joked was spicy enough to turn his hair red, too. Every major city in the world had restaurants earmarked by either or both of them as “the best”: a Chinese place in Prague, the Turkish coffee house four blocks from the Louvre, an Indian restaurant wedged between two brothels in Buenos Aires. Clint’s places always had clear sight lines and strong coffee; Natasha’s had decadent chocolate desserts and were owned by tiny grandmothers.

Since a miserable train job in Switzerland, Clint wouldn't ride any train unless they were in the car directly next to the conductor. The New York subway system was no exception, and they slithered through the crowd until Clint had his back to the wall. It was rush hour, and each stop crushed Natasha closer and closer, until she was plastered against his chest. _Stop it,_ she told her involuntarily warming insides. _You've been this close, you've been even closer_.

But those times were different. Those were survival -- a heated kiss on a balcony to retain their cover, an hour lying on top of each other as bullets perforated the wall above them, a naked night in a shared sleeping bag so that they didn’t freeze into the Norway winter. They could touch each other a million times in the field and this would still be different. There was no survival in the shirt that molded to his chest, nor in the way her hand lingered on his arm before they disembarked at Borough Hall.

The Dragon’s Beard was a few blocks from the subway station and they walked, not arm in arm, because that made Natasha feel vulnerable to attacks. “What’s the newest book?” Clint asked as they walked. “Come across anything good yet?”

Natasha groaned. “Nobody knows how to write a good intrigue.” She looked at him with a sly grin. “We should write something, based off our missions. Hell, we could squeeze three bestsellers out of that month we spent in Azerbaijan, easy.”

Clint laughed. “God, that place was the worst. Who wants to read about a month holed up in a rat-infested flat?”

“I was referencing the parts where I stalked a black market plutonium merchant, defused a bomb, and saved, you know, around 350 children.”

“Oh, _that_ part.” Clint grinned and nudged her shoulder with hers. “Saved an entire schoolhouse while I did exactly nothing.” The look he slid to her was tinged with awe. He did that sometimes, when he thought she wasn’t looking. Natasha never knew what to do with those looks, because while everyone else’s awestruck looks were often touched with fear, Clint’s had devotion dancing around the edges.

So she said nothing about it, pretended she hadn't noticed, steered the subject to the new arrows he and Tony were engineering in the lab. Before long they were walking into the restaurant and Natasha was just about to ask for a table when Clint said offhandedly, “Hey, what if we got it to go? I know a great place.” He smiled his most charming smile, the one that he never used and that had, in the past year or so, started to make her heart beat irregularly. And because he never used that smile, and because that smile made her want to give him the crescent moon as a bow, she found herself adding “to go” to the order she placed with the tiny proprietor.

She could have made him tell her where he was taking her. “Disney World,” he replied when she asked, and it was a joke and it wasn’t. “Disney World is a security _nightmare_ ,” she reminded him. "Remember the crocodile cult? Not safe."

Not that she really thought Clint would ever take her somewhere unsafe. And that thought in itself was arresting, because Natasha Romanoff was not trusting, Natasha Romanoff did not follow blindly. At SHIELD, she would turn down a mission she didn’t feel right about, even if was handed to her by Fury himself. If anyone besides Clint had said, “follow me” and expected her to actually do so, she would have laughed, or maybe swung a kick. But she would follow Clint, had followed Clint for years, and he’d never led her astray. She wondered if he knew how much she trusted him.

She had a terrifying feeling that he did.

They walked down long blocks of tenements, climbed stairs in abandoned warehouses, leapt across a few roofs with their bags of food clutched tightly in their fists. Clint kept up the conversation as they scrambled along, teasing her, refusing to reveal where they were going or why until finally, on one roof no different from the four previous, he stopped.

Natasha had her back to him, surveying the haphazard route they’d taken across the Brooklyn blocks. “Tadaaaa!” Clint shouted, and she turned to find an unobstructed view of the Brooklyn Bridge’s arches and the sun preparing to sink below them. He had this excited proud little-boy smile on, and his arms were thrown out in wide invitation, like a magician who had just sawed a girl in half.

But if she let herself jump into those arms then _she'd_  be the girl in the box, _she'd_  be sawed open and he’d run from what he found inside. So instead she said, “I _guess_ this is a little nicer,” and threw him a big teasing grin. They settled themselves on the edge of the building, passing their fragrant boxes back and forth over the heads of oblivious pedestrians eight stories below, until Clint checked his watch.

“It’s starting,” he said as he cracked open one of the Thai beers he’d brought and handed it to her. Natasha opened her mouth to ask _what_ was starting and Clint huffed out a sigh. “Just _look_ ,” and he turned her head to the bridge just as the sun dipped behind its arches. Red-orange light blazed out between the cables and stone, illuminating the iconic bridge until it was glorious and otherworldly. The various buildings behind it faded into rectangular shadows, hazy in the evaporating summer heat, and if Natasha believed in an afterlife then she would have been sure this was the bridge to it.

 _Steve would love to draw this,_ she thought as she sipped her beer. _He’d come here every day, and I’m never going to tell him about it._ She knew without asking that this was where Clint came on the days when the world was too much, when a mission went horribly wrong, when he woke up in a cold sweat remembering Loki pooling in each corner of his brain. It was in the way his shoulder rested against hers, and the way his feet kicked against the brick: peace radiated from him in waves and she let them wash over her as the last of the sun’s rays slipped from the horizon.

Natasha turned to Clint with a smile and realized too late that she’d let the peaceful waves carry her away from safety. She had gotten caught in the riptide and this was it: turning with a “thank you” on her lips and finding Clint watching her with such undisguised longing that she was surprised there weren’t actual cartoon hearts in his eyes. _Get out, now,_ her mind whispered urgently. _Run away, jump off the building, something,_ anything.

The thing about riptides, though, was they pulled harder when you fought them; if Natasha was being truthful, she was too tempted, too curious, too close to his face, to fight very hard. So when Clint leaned in and asked “Nat?” in the most hesitant of voices, she closed her eyes and let the current pull her under.

There had been a line in the sand, a line she’d maintained for years, and now she knew the reasons why: because Clint held her like she was precious, because when his eyes were closed he looked unbearably fragile, because neither of them had ever been this tentative. _Remember the line!_ her brain yelled, but the line was on the shore and she was floating in the current. _Remember the line!_ her brain shouted, but he smelled like beer and tasted like the peanuts on his pad thai and somehow that was a good thing. _Remember_ \--and her hands swept up his arms-- _the_ \--and his fingers were tangled in her hair-- _line_ \--and god stakeouts were going to be way more fun now--

 _And that’s why you have that fucking line._ “Shit,” Natasha gasped as she pulled back, breathless and wide-eyed. Clint’s blue eyes fluttered open, and they were so dreamy and unfocused that she yelled it to the bridge this time: “ _Shit!_ ” She scrambled back, nearly falling off the ledge, and was running before she was fully on her feet. _This is_ exactly _why you don’t kiss work partners, you fucking idiot, because he’s in love with you, and that would jeopardize every single mission you do together, would jeopardize the entire goddamn team._

She stopped two roofs away and looked back. Clint was on his feet and watching her. He yelled, “Natasha!” and then, quieter, “ _please_ ,” with desperation in his voice, and she wouldn't, she _couldn't_ stay.

“Greased lightning,” she hurled back into the night, voice raw with every emotion that churned inside her. It was the time she’d found Clint dancing along to the movie in his quarters, hair slicked back into a ducktail and singing at full volume. It was the time Clint discovered the trunk where she hid all her sappy Regency romance novels. It was everything they never talked about, even between the two of them. It was a collection of things that they agreed had never happened.

Clint’s shoulders slumped. “Greased lightning,” he agreed defeatedly, and Natasha didn't have to say anything for him to know not to follow her.

\---

Clint watched her disappear into the night like the tail of a comet. He watched her shadow dissolve, then he watched the stars shift through the sky for an hour, then he watched his hands fold into indecisive fists. Was he angry? Sad? Depressed?

His phone buzzed as he debated. Tony’s face illuminated the screen and Clint’s thumb hovered over “IGNORE,” but maybe being rude to Tony would fill in the pit forming in his stomach. “Stark, tell me something’s on fire.”

"Legolas!" God, he wished he could punch people through phones. “I was sitting here, minding my own business, when who comes tearing through the lounge but Red Death herself.” Clint could hear the smirk. Why did he think talking to Tony would help, again?

“Is there a _point_ to this, Tony?” Clint pinched the bridge of nose, belatedly remembering that it had been whacked in the last battle and thus was quite tender. “Ow.”

“Well, I seem remember that you and Red left together a few hours ago, allegedly on a spying expedition; but if that were _actually_ the case she wouldn't come storming back into the Tower without you, and she probably wouldn't be storming at all.” He paused, a too-long pause, and Clint could just see that shiteating grin Tony favored spreading across his face. “Did you do something stupid?”

 _Shit._ Clint didn’t say anything, just pushed the flat of his hand into his eye and wondered if it was enough pressure to effectively lobotomize himself. He’d happily erase this entire conversation; in fact, he’d go back and erase Natasha swearing at the bridge and everything that followed.

Tony let out a long whistle. “Son of a bitch. You _did._ ”

Clint groaned. “Stop. _Stop._ I’m in Brooklyn and I hate trains. Be a nice billionaire and send me a helicopter. I know you have some kind of tracker in my shoe or whatever.”

“It’s sewn into your underwear, actually,” Tony said blithely before hanging up and leaving Clint alone with his thoughts again. He wished he had a bow: he’d line up their discarded beer cans on a ledge and shoot them until...

 _Until what?_ He’d known exactly what was going to happen and he’d dived in anyway, praying to gods he didn’t believe in that somehow she’d raze every one of her walls, that she’d fall into his arms and little cartoon birds would fly up with _Happily Ever After_ printed in curly letters on a banner. He’d fully expected her to panic and run. But, though Clint expected Natasha to continue surprising him until the end of days, he’s been blindsided when she’d thrown “greased lightning” at him. _Fucking greased lightning._

To Natasha, the moments categorized under “greased lightning” were permanently erased from the record of their friendship, silly things that nobody else should ever know about. But Clint kept every one of those moments on file, anyway, because they were some of his favorite memories. He’d turned strawberry red when she found him watching _Grease_ alone, but she’d stayed and watched with him, had let him teach her the words to “You’re the One that I Want” with minimal teasing. When he’d found her romance books, they’d spent the next hours dramatically reading the terrible dialogue and dirty chapters aloud to each other, falling off her couch with laughter. He’d agreed when she’d shouted the code word into the wind, but “greased lightning” was for embarrassments, and while he knew it was foolish to love someone who didn’t even believe in the concept, he’d never call it an embarrassment. He’d never call her an embarrassment.

He had shoved their empty takeout boxes into the greasy paper bag and was lying on his back, hands under his head, when he heard the signature whine of Tony’s arc reactors. _Of course Stark was going to show up. Should've seen that one coming from a mile away._ He heard Tony power the suit off, felt a vibration through the rooftop as the Iron Man suit opened up and Tony stepped out. There was a brief shadow in the moonlight and then Tony was propped next to him on the roof, leaning back on his hands.

Clint connected constellations in his head -- _Sagittarius, the archer; Corona Australis, the southern crown_ \-- and waited for Tony to start mocking him. And waited. And waited? “Is there a reason you’re not talking?” he finally asked, rolling his eyes up until he could barely see Tony’s nose.

“When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut more than anything else,” Tony said in a not-answer, gaze pinned on the sky. His voice was less brash than usual, and had taken on a dreamy thoughtful tone that Clint supposed was reserved for doing science or having heart to hearts. “My dad told me astronauts don’t make any money. First thing I did when I built the suit, though, I mean _first_ thing? Flew that sucker as far up as I could. For a second I thought I’d reach the moon.” Clint flashed back to New York and Tony pushing that nuke up Park Avenue and then to space, the one-way trip Tony had taken upon himself.

“Doesn't talking about space still give you panic attacks?” he asked, turning his head so he could see Tony’s profile more clearly.

“Yep, totally does,” Tony said, with small rueful sigh. “So now that you’re feeling bad for me, you can tell me about how you chased off your Slavic shadow.” He grinned, a flash of white in the night.

Clint laid there and considered, silent as he tracked helicopter and plane tail lights across the clear Brooklyn sky. On the one hand, Tony could be a complete douche, and he wouldn’t put it past him to get gossipy and tell the rest of the guys. Steve would be earnestly helpful, Thor would give him pep talks, Sam would feed him terrible pick up lines, and Bruce would hover anxiously. On the other hand, Tony was sitting here on a roof in Brooklyn with him in the middle of the night, as if that were a normal thing they did together, and he hadn’t yet said anything offensive enough for Clint to want to stab him; somehow it worked out that Tony would be the least annoying confidant on the team.

“Fine,” he sighed when he could tell Tony was getting antsy. “And I know you’re going to tell Pepper, but if Thor comes up to me with some Asgardian love juice or whatever, I’ll know it was you, and I’ll tell Pepper that you broke bro code, and she’ll do something to you that you won’t like.” Telling Pepper seemed so juvenile, but they both knew it was the best way to get Tony to agree to something, and Tony nodded his acceptance of the terms. Clint chose a star out of Sagittarius, stared at it hard, and said, “I kissed her.”

Tony opened his mouth, paused in thought, then said, “Not trying to, you know, sound insensitive or whatever, but haven’t you done that before? Like, literally last week, when you two were infiltrating the gala at the opera house.”

Clint snorted. “Well, yeah, but that was when she was Natalie Rushman and I was Clay Baxter. That’s happened a hundred times, Natalie and Clay, Nora and Charles, whoever; but I, Clint, had never kissed her, Natasha.” He heard Tony lie back on the roof and mimic his position. _Tony Stark, noted billionaire, lying on a roof in ripped jeans and an old sweatshirt._ There was another long pause.

“Did she punch you?”

“No.”

“So she was into it, then?”

“Yeah.” The way she’d reached for his face, the soft sound she’d made when his hands dug into her hair… He’d kissed her in the field many times and he knew this was different.

“Well, then, you’re fine, right?” Tony asked. “She’s into it, you’re into it, get back to the Tower and sweep her into your arms and have a good time, right?”

 Clint rolled his eyes. “You can’t just sweep an assassin into your arms, Tony. Do you know how many knives she has on her person? And I’m not just trying to ‘have a good time,’ I’m in love--” he rolled over and let the sticky smell of the tar paper roof invade his nostrils and glue his tongue to the roof of his mouth so he’d never say anything ever again, _ever_.

Tony shot upright. “Oh my god. Oh, my _god_. How did I not realize this? You’re in love with her?” Clint squeezed his eyes shut as Tony continued, voice getting louder. “I thought you were just trying to sleep with her, and all this time, you've been _in love_ with _Natasha Romanoff._ ”

“I actually already know this,” Clint muttered. Tony ignored or possibly didn’t hear him as he got up and paced the roof. He absently kicked at the bag of take out boxes and then, in the “I figured it out” voice that Clint knew was trouble:

“You romantic bastard! You brought her up here with, what is this, Thai food? And then--” a pause and Clint knew what was coming, “--would you look at that, this is the _perfect_ view of the bridge at sunset, how _convenient_ , and then you sat there and the sun was setting and you _kissed her_ , you kissed the _Black fucking Widow_ , and not because you’re a normal guy like the rest of us and just think she’s pretty damn hot; but _nooo_ , it’s because you’re _in love_ with her and want to buy a _dog_  with her, and a house with a fucking _white picket fence_ \--”

“The house is optional,” Clint mumbled miserably into his arms.

“I can’t believe this,” Tony said, temporarily drifting into silence, and while it was objectively cool to stun Tony Stark, Clint wished it was with literally any other information besides this. He pushed himself into a standing position and folded his arms as Tony threw more questions at him. “Does she know? I mean, she probably _knows_ , she’s not stupid; but have you told her? Does she, er, feel the same way?” Tony looked belatedly cautious, as if maybe running away after being kissed was a clear sign she wasn't interested.

Clint hunched his shoulders. “I did tell her, on accident, the night of that battle with AIM. Yes, _accident_ ,” he added, catching Tony’s disbelieving gaze. “We were in a fight and she asked why I even cared and I, uh--”

“Lost all your senses?”

“--Basically. And it seemed like something was going to happen, but Steve showed up to tell us about the AIM agents, and since then… Nothing has changed. We have dinner together every week, it wasn’t like this one was special, but we were right around the corner, and this is my favorite place to watch the sunset, and--”

“And the lighting was right and she looked like a goddess, yeah yeah,” Tony said, but not unkindly. “The sunset will do that to redheads.” He offered Clint a small knowing smile, and Clint remembered what Natasha had told him about Tony after her job at Stark Industries ended: _for all the money and fame he’s got, the only thing he can’t live without is Pepper._

They stood together, quiet for minutes as they watched boats slide under the Brooklyn Bridge, bobbing on the swishing waves. A warm breeze rolled around a smokestack, depositing the briny scent of the water as it ruffled their hair.

“You going to give up?” Tony asked quietly, still watching the small boats chug along.

“Not until I know the answer is definitely no,” Clint replied stubbornly. He looked over at Tony and received a grin laden with more respect than he thought the billionaire had shown him since they’d met.

“Let’s go, then.” Tony stepped back into the Iron Man suit, slammed the visor down, and they were off, back on his Manhattan balcony in under two minutes. Steve and Thor were in the lounge and Clint glared warning daggers at Tony as he took off for the elevator to the residences. His heart was in his throat as he exited on the floor below his own, and he swallowed it back down as he knocked on her door and identified himself to JARVIS. There was a long silence, and _what if she doesn't let me in, what if I have singlehandedly ruined the best friendship I've ever had_ , and then the door slid open.

Natasha had just come out of the shower: her hair was pulled into a messy, wet bun and her skin was rosy from the heat. He could feel her assessment of him while he walked towards where she stood in the kitchen, fingers flicking through her ubiquitous tea tin. “Clint,” she said slowly, carefully, in greeting.

“Natasha.” One word and he watched as she armed herself with her mug of tea, steeled herself for war. “Natasha, we need to t--”

“No we don’t,” she snapped. “I said _greased lightning_ , Clint, and you agreed, and that means it’s done.”

“Well I un-agree,” he snapped back. His eyes caught on the silver at her throat, gaze tangling in the fletching of that tiny arrow. “I take it back, I don’t agree. I un- _greased lightning_ because I’m in love with you, so in love with every one of your facets and faults; I've loved you for years and I will not stop, ever.” He drew closer and gently, slowly, so she could run if she wanted, touched one finger to the arrow on her neck. Quieter, he looked directly into her green glass eyes and said, “And I think you at least maybe like me more than most people, since you didn’t punch me back there, and you’re still wearing this necklace, and, look-- greased lightning is for embarrassments, okay? And I am not embarrassed to love you, Natasha, not now or ever. You wear this arrow every single day, but think I’m going to give up hope? Nat, I will keep trying until the day you take this off.”

She looked up at him with doubt clouding her eyes. They were so close, close enough for him to dip her into something wildly romantic, to pull her close and kiss her senseless. But this was Natasha Romanoff, and one did not make dramatic moves around someone with reflexes like hers; so instead he squeezed her hand gently, walked to the door without looking back, and took the elevator to the roof so he could watch the stars.

In the morning, when he woke to find himself still on the roof, his phone had two messages. “I don’t know anything about love,” at 2 am, and then an hour later:

“Will you teach me?”

And Clint went down to tell her his answer in person.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to santiagoinbflat, my favorite beta and friend!


End file.
